Judas and the Black Messiah: Pitch Perfect Propaganda
Robert Hampton, American Renaissance, March 8, 2021
In 1969, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover said, “The Black Panther Party, without question, represents the greatest threat to internal security of the country.” Today, popular media see the Black Panthers as heroes who fought “white supremacy.”
The latest example of this is the film
Judas and the Black Messiah. It’s about the Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and his relationship with federal informant William O’Neal. Hoover and the FBI considered Hampton a possible “black messiah” a charismatic leader capable of uniting black militants and the (mostly white) New Left. The “Judas” is O’Neal, a common criminal recruited by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program to infiltrate the Black Panther Party of Chicago. The information O’Neal passed on to government agents allegedly led to Hampton’s death at the hands of law enforcement in 1969.
Judas and the Black Messiah is based on the true story of FBI informant William O’Neal and his role in the 1969 killing of Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. It took years for the facts around Hampton’s killing to become public, thanks to a vigorous government effort to cover them up. While the movie, directed by Shaka King from a screenplay he wrote with Will Berson, stays relatively faithful to history, it does take some liberties with the historical record including by filling in some of its blanks. Here’s what’s real and what’s invented.
CinemaBlend
There are few movies receiving as much as attention as Shaka Kingâs
Judas and the Black Messiah thanks to the biographical dramaâs heartbreaking retelling of the events that led to the assassination of Illinois Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton and the struggles of the African-American community in late 1960s. The
Judas and the Black Messiah cast, which includes Daniel Kaluuya as impassioned activist and LaKeith Stanfield as the criminal-turned-informant who provided the FBI with information on the Black Panthers, is another reason the movie is receiving so much buzz.
And outside of the two main leads,